haonowshaokao

V’s gugu (father’s younger sister), biao di (father’s younger sister’s son) and tang di (father’s younger brother’s son) have come to visit for the week, so as per tradition we went to the “Korean spa” yesterday. This involved getting up fairly early, packing bags full of clothes and entertainment, phoning to see if we could take the pram (“no”), meandering out of the house in dribs and drabs, and taking two buses across to the other side of Tongzhou.

The point of the spa is surely the big room downstairs with the pool, showers and sauna, but I was the only one out of the nine to bother with it more than once. I wasn’t particularly interested in getting into conversation with paunchy midddle-aged naked Chinese men with tattoos, so I just went to the deserted sauna and tried to sweat out my cold. I had three sessions. During the first one a man came in with a wet shirt, which he hung on the railings until I explained to him that while a sauna was hot, it probably wasn’t the best place to dry a shirt. The second session was fine until some macho type came in, pressed all the buttons to add water to the coals, said that it was too hot now, and walked out again. The third session was uneventful until an old man came in and lit up a cigarette.

Upstairs the family had booked a room. I thought it would be a room with sofas and a table where we could all play mahjong, but you had to pay an extra £35 for one of those, so we just had a regular room, which turned out to be like a hotel room, but with a warped mirror on the ceiling. Hm.

Two beds and nine people meant most of us were hanging round other parts of the complex, particularly the third floor, which has large rooms full of recliners with people sleeping on them. I hung out there and watched downloaded TV on my tablet for a few hours. It’s hard to find several beds together, so the others would just turn up from time to time.

The second floor has a frankly laughable gym (three broken cycling machines and a table tennis table) and a large restaurant. The food is better quality canteen fare, with occasional luxury items. This time there was lots of seafood, freshly cooked on demand. All too messy for me, apart from the raw salmon drenched in wasabi sauce – I ended up eating plenty of that.

We left to go home at 8.30pm, after nearly 12 hours. Outside the sun had gone down but it was still hot. Not a bad day out, but not a great one this time. Perhaps we’re all getting a little bored with the place.

Change is in the air this week, literally and figuratively. A month ago it was pleasantly warm and dry, and I was working a gruelling 54-hour week. Now I’m down to 12 hours, and outside it’s been alternating between stultifying, oppressive, overcast heat and hour-long thunderstorms for weeks. It didn’t do this last year, but that’s Beijing for you – lots of different weather, none of it good.
I left my main job last week. My contract was up, and it was time to move on. The company don’t have the money or resources to run the kind of course they want to, and the only argument for staying on was that there was potential for it to be very successful later on. On the downside they weren’t paying me anywhere near what I could be making elsewhere, and while I don’t want to be mercenary, I’ve got a family to take care of now and that has to take priority. They have to learn what the going rate for a TEFL trainer is, and simply telling them apparently doesn’t work. Officially I’m still the headmaster, but in practice I’ll only come in on a part time basis if and when they need a class taught – and I have a feeling they’ll try to get other trainers to come in on the cheap. Well, good luck to them, no ill feelings, it was a good experience overall.
The last week has been a lot quieter than the usual. I’ve managed to get a few chores done, though not as many as I would’ve liked. Since I’m here I feel I should do more to take care of the baby, and while it turns out that there’s not that much I can do there’s always bits of fussing around, fetching things and baby-carrying needed. Aside from that there’s Mandarin to learn, stuff to write, films to edit, etc – but the priority is to sort out future work.
It’s a bit odd staying at home during the daytime. Previously Sundays were my only free days and I’d try to cram as much into them as possible (always a route to frustration but unavoidable). Otherwise I was pretty much just sleeping and eating breakfast here. Being here in the daytime without a hectic schedule brings the good (it’s actually quite a nice place to be on the whole) and the bad (no cold or room temperature drinking water, in the summer) into sharper focus. The best way to deal with it all is probably to treat it as a holiday – but that means finding new work this week. before the novelty wears off.
In other news, Saturday was my birthday, not such a big deal when you’ve got your own kid, but V made an effort anyway, buying presents and a pie (much better than a cake, thanks!), and it ended up being one of the least miserable birthdays ever. So big props to her.

1. Go to the British consulate with all necessary documents and pay 50 quid, write names on piece of paper which is pinned up on the bulletin board.
2. Come back ten days later to pick up “certificate of single status”.
3. Buy train ticket to your fiancee’s home province (1000km away) one week in advance.
4. Take taxi to train station, lose phone, take overnight train, lose ticket, have to dodge way out of station.
5. Take taxi to registry office.
6. Show documents to registry office. Vital stamp missing in fiancee’s household certificate.
7. Take bus to fiancee’s hometown, 20km away.
8. Wait in cafe for police station to open.
9. Persuade police officer to stamp household certificate.
10. Get shared unlicensed taxi back to Wuhan.
11. Arrive back at registry office moments before it closes for two-day holiday, show documents, informed that we need more money and a photo.
12. Downstairs get money, take photo in nearby photo studio.

13. Return to office, fill in forms, shake hands with helpful officer.
14. Go back to Beijing.
15. Go to British consulate with marriage certificate to register marriage. Informed that we also need a notarial certificate, translated into English, from the notary public office. In Wuhan.
16. Nearly a year later, send sister-in-law down to Wuhan to get certificate, translated into English, from the notary public office.
17. Take certificate to the British consulate. Informed that the certificate needs a stamp from the Chinese foreign ministry.
18. Go to Chinese foreign ministry on weekday between 9am and 11am (only time it’s open). Told to use entrance on the other side of the building, a 15-minute walk round the block.
19. Go through scanners, given card key, find correct floor and correct queue.
20. Guy at front of queue complains that he’s been going to different offices in the building for two days, heart sinks a bit, but officer takes form and everything seems fine, until have to pay 33 quid fee and only have 31 quid in wallet.
21. Find ATM, take out money, come back, pay fee, leave.
22. Come back a week later to collect now stamped certificate.
23. Go back to British consulate, pay 34 quid fee, hand in certificate.
24. Come back next day, pick up certificate. Officially married.

Next time: How to transfer your baby’s citizenship from Chinese to British, including the process of renouncing Chinese citizenship and adding dependents to a work permit. Oh god.

Beijing is not a good city for transport. The subway is rammed full at all hours, the roads are gridlocked for good chunks of the day, and bus lanes and queuing don’t seem to have caught on. The only reliable way to get around is by bike. There are dedicated lanes everywhere, the whole city is flat, and you’re never more than five minutes away from a repair stand. The idea that there are nine million bikes here is a bit of a fib though. Fifteen years ago, possibly. These days having a bike says “I’m poor” and poor = not cool, and everyone wants a car. In the bike park downstairs there’s a huge pile of rotting old bikes, and I expect there are many more around the city.
When I first moved to Beijing in 2007 buying a bike was third on my ‘to do’ list after ‘get a job’ and ‘get paid’. I found a classy shop in the centre and bought an impressive looking machine for just over 300 kuai (£30). It came with a huge rope-like bike lock, and I stored it in a huge bike park under my office building, guarded by a surly man in a mao suit. One day, about three weeks later, it was gone. The lock was on the floor, open, surly mao suit man shrugged and performed a perfunctory search. A bit annoying, but not really a surprise. A student told me that she’d been to a bike park and had asked the attendant if she could buy one. “Which one?” he asked. “that pretty white one,” she said. The bike was locked, obviously not the property of the attendant. “Come back tomorrow, you can have it for 60 kuai.” So it goes.
The lesson was pretty clear – if you want a bike, don’t get one that somebody else will want to steal. So 16 months ago I bought the oldest, most wrecked looking thing I could find and changed the broken parts. Here it is.

1 – For some reason in the west baskets are considered twee and girly. Screw that, where else am I going to put my shopping? Every bike in China has a basket.

2 – The handlebar covers seem to be from two different bikes, and one has half-fallen off. This does not affect functionality at all, whilst maintaining the whole “broken” vibe.

3 – This sticker means I can keep my bike in a bike park for a month, for 3 quai (30p). Shame I only use it once a week. Usually I keep my bike outside my office (as in the photo above), where it’s guarded by an old lady in a sash who charges me 2 mao (2p) a time. When not guarding bikes she goes through the bins to find plastic bottles to sell to the recycling centre.

4 – This seat is new, and unfortunately looks it. Previously instead of a seat there was a comfortable mesh of foam and broken springs, but V insisted that I change it. Uncomfortable and suspiciously expensive-looking, actually it just cost 10 kuai (£1).

5 – Why do old bikes have white paint on the back? Some sort of night visibility concept, perhaps. The frame looks old and battered, but actually it’s fine, not even really rusty.

6 – The brakes are fine. I need to get them changed every six months, but since they are 5 kuai (50p) each it’s not a big deal.

7 – Nasty rattly clanky chain cover, with a (shhh!) good quality new chain inside.

8 – Tiny, flimsy bike lock which could probably be opened with a pin. I have left this bike at a busy intersection for a week, returning to find it lying on its side. Obviously nobody wants to steal it.

9 – New tyres with good quality inner tubes inside. At first these looked far too new, but the day after I had them changed somebody decided to paint new lines on the street and I left work to find the lower half of the bike speckled with white paint. Great news.